■Drs. Edward and Claire Manwell returned recently from duty in the Vietnamese government-operated hospital in Nah Trang, a city of about 100,000 people, now swelled with refugees from the countryside. The doctors, he a surgeon and she a pediatrician, donated their services to the Vietnamese people through a program sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development.
■The Massachusetts attorney general and the Hampshire County chapter of the Civil Liberties Union struck out yesterday at the attempt by Northampton Police Chief James J. Whalen to ban the use of “Manchild in the Promised Land” in Northampton High School. Attorney General Robert Quinn stated that Claude Brown’s book “can’t be classified obscene by any Supreme Court standards.”
■A miniature golf course is taking shape where the swimming pool and child’s pool were located at Look Memorial Park in Florence. Come June, park officials hope to open the new 18-hole mini-golf course.
■It has been a silent spring for honeybees in Massachusetts. A combination of parasitic mites and the cold winter has killed up to 90 percent of domestic insects, says bee expert Richard Bonney. Bonney is the author of several books on beekeeping and has taught the subject for 18 years at the University of Massachusetts.
■The governor has nominated Orange resident Darren Alston to be the next clerk magistrate in Northampton District Court. Currently the acting clerk in Greenfield District Court, Alston, 45, has also worked in the clerk’s office in Orange since 1993.
■University of Massachusetts Amherst union members have approved a controversial proposal to award merit pay bonuses to certain faculty. The so-called Exceptional Merit agreement will allow the university to boost the base salary of some professors in the range of $5,000 to $10,000 per individual, with a clause for $20,000 awards in extraordinary circumstances.